Home is Where the Tea is
by Nt a Clue Hw 2 Spll Annymus
Summary: Yet another story to pick up after The Mummy Returns leaves off. No real plot, just generalized fluff. Rated up to be safe.


**Disclaimer: I do not own The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, or any of the characters.**

**I just wanted to offer a ****warning**** that this story isn't exactly completed but I lost the thread of the idea. Sorry for the abrupt ending.**

Home is Where the Tea is

The unmistakably British car rolled forward harshly on the misshapen rocks, its puttering engine and lurching speeds the only things keeping it from getting stuck in any one of the potholes lining the road.

"Home, sweet, home," Rick O'Connell sarcastically deadpanned to no one in particular. The seats, in concurrence with the rocks and the driver, bounced the four passengers forward in one jagged motion.

"Yes, well, it is rather nice to be home, isn't it?" Jonathon replied regardless of his brother-in-law's annoyance with his driving. It hadn't seemed to bother him much while on the double-decker bus. But then again, he could still be sore about his ruined car after all this time. It was quite hard to figure that man out sometimes though it seemed his sister had with ease.

Evelyn Carnahan, now O'Connell, indeed understood her husband of over nine years well. His moods were nothing new, especially this one. She knew exactly how to get him out of it. Leaving her brother's question floating through the air, she said with barely suppressed mirth, "It was just an oasis, darling."

A light growl curved his lips into a frown. "And it was just a bracelet and just a book, honey," he challenged back.

This piqued the interest of their only son, Alex, and he added in a way only a child could, "That bracelet was anything but just, Dad."

"Enough to make you think twice before putting on any other old dead guy's jewelry?"

Alex sneered jokingly at his father and it finally pulled a grin to the adventurer's face as he ruffled his son's hair against the younger boy's wishes.

Evie sat back and smiled to herself. Maybe she hadn't cracked his mood this time but at least one of them always could. The car lurched again and she sighed in momentary annoyance, her dark curls falling forward off her shoulders when they came to an abrupt stop outside their mansion of a house. She liked to refer to it as a mansion anyways, to Rick it was an oversized library with beds.

But mansion or library, she was glad to be home even if she did miss some of the excitement of their impromptu vacations. She knew the next step she would take would doubtfully end their latest adventure but find a way to start a new one. Whether that would happen by allowing her to read a nice adventure-filled book after safely making it to the house in these blasted heels or by sending her pitching to the ground if the ruddy rocks tipped her wobbling ankle, she didn't know.

Instead the door snapped open and she put aside her thoughts to look up into the face of her husband. "Well you're becoming increasingly, devilishly charming, aren't you?"

The rhetorical question hit its mark and he quickly pushed away the same makings of a blush he had let creep onto his face the first time she had tried that. Taking his hand and walking the length of the driveway with him, Evie supposed she'd leave the trip to the hospital for some other day.

* * *

><p>"Mum, you promised to help with my school work!" Barely nine-year-old Alex loudly reminded his mother. He had what she could only make out as shambles of math homework scattered across their quite large dining hall table. The sight itself was enough to ensure Alex would stay home and attend school no matter what adventurous travels she and Rick discovered.<p>

Give her history, literature, or a long dead language even the Bembridge scholars had yet to fully uncover - anything but the rather advanced math laid out before him. That was the danger of having a child with her intellect and his father's courage to attempt anything. "Someone has to start up supper or you would be eating after that mountain of homework of yours is long finished." She reached down, gave him a peck on the cheek, and curled a lock of his golden hair behind his ear, effectively smothering her son into listening to the reasoning she offered next. "Go get your uncle. He'll be glad to help you." He could take a challenge for once.

The boy slipped off his chair and walked through the set of wide doors to his right, wiping his cheek and muttering, "That's what she said last time too," under his breath.

Yet he walked off and Evie pursed her lips to keep from nibbling on one. This couldn't be considered bad parenting, right? She was placated only by the idea that he does love his uncle and getting her brother to do more productive things with his nephew would only strengthen the mischievous bond.

It didn't hurt that Rick entered the wide doors Alex had left ajar. Even after nine some years, that man knew just how to walk in to take her breath from her, wrapping it around his finger as he drew it steadily from her lungs. The man had confidence in his gait – perhaps this was an American trait for no local men could even remotely duplicate it. There was just enough unintentional poise that she hated herself for getting caught up in it for that single moment. And it would always be a single moment for when no one else was in the room, Rick didn't see a reason to address her from any farther than within his arms.

"Have I kissed you yet today?" He asked, his hands clasped together innocently at the small of her back.

She didn't even care to coherently answer but only barely shook her head negatively in reply instead. Whenever he asked, she would reply he hadn't. It was always an ongoing game between them, but this time it seemed heavier. The answer she always had waiting rarely ever had the chance to be vocalized as he claimed her mouth first. This time he waited, just looking her over as if he had never seen her before or never would again. It worried her to say the least for surely, having nearly ten years and two of her own lifetimes, he knew what she looked like. "Rick," she tentatively whispered.

"You're still here," he all but mouthed.

His hesitance became clear and Evie did nothing more than clasp him around the neck and gently pull him down for the kiss she had been waiting for.

His hair was thin, more so than the first time she ran her fingers through it but not as thin as most. It simply allowed easy trails to be dug through and covered up instantly as her fingers worked their way upward to keep his lips firmly on hers. If reassurance was something he needed right now, she would offer as much as she could: the touch of her nimble fingers, the feel of her fully warmed lips on his, and any words should she find them along the way.

He just had to see it as she did. She hadn't been taken away from him for the rest of his life, she had been given back to spend that life with him. And she wouldn't waste a minute of it looking back. Her job entitled digging up the past that lay buried beneath the sands of Egypt, but that particular moment of her past was one that could stay buried there forever for all she cared.

The hands previously holding back rose to her waist and slid upward across her back just as her fingers had through his hair. The trails he made, however, burned in warmth through her blouse leaving scorched lines of desire along the length of her back. Each of his fingers was searing her skin, releasing and contorting the last of the rage that had come with her death into the fire she had always carefully tended inside of him that now ran rampant as a raging bonfire. He would let out a primordial scream if he thought it would help but instead he pulled her to fit against his body and buried his face in her soft curls.

As Rick pulled her that much closer, she wasn't thinking of the moments like this she never would have experienced. She refused to believe the last kiss she would have received from the man she loved a hundred times more than the Library of Alexandria in all its glory would have been a hurried reassurance of presence and capability in getting their son back and then a quick disappearance. But it was these thoughts she would have and be then done with them, the pesky things. Rick was here with her, even death hadn't separated them, so why waste the time given to them looking back?

"Oh, puh-lease," Alex stepped through the doorway and instantly pulled a face.

Both parents lifted their heads towards the intrusion and really, with the number of times their child protested to their displays of affection, all they could do was turn in their embrace and face him as a united force and try to keep the etchings of smirks off their faces.

Jonathon heard his nephew's telltale groan of disgust and stepped in behind him. "Aw c'mon, Alex, let them have their fun. At your age, it's all rubbish but just wait until you find a couple girls you'd like to neck all day."

"Jonathon," Evie admonished harshly.

He offered her a grin. "Sorry, old mum. We'll work up to that one."

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry again for the extremely harsh cut-off of an ending but I lost the story and figured I'd publish what I had. Let me know if you'd like it continued and I'll try my best to pick it back up again.<strong>


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